could someone help me with choosing the right emiter for my Olight S1R II and S2R II. I really like these flashlights, but the cool white is just awful.
I know that S1R II is using a CREE XM-L2 LED and S2R II is using a Luminus SST40-W. I found some on Aliexpress, could someone tell me if they will work fine? I want the same LED’s in both.
I just opened my S1R ll. Used a utility knife blade. Once the bezel starting coming apart and the blade had pushed it out as far as it was going to go, I ground the sharp part of the blade down a little on one end of the blade and that pushed it out a little more. Then I took the top of the blade and ground a blunt bevel on it it and fliped the utility blade over and drove that in the bezel groove. The bezel came right out with no damage. So now I got a stand alone tool that will remove olight bezel’s. The mcpcb is 14mm but its very thin. Somewhere around .6mm. Ground a 16mm copper mcpcb from KD down to 14mm and I’m still working on thinning the thickness down. Going to use a LH351D 3500k with the KD mcpcb. I have been putting this mod off for awhile and this thread got me interested again in trying it. So far so good.
I swapped the emitter to Olight Warrior Mini. This same destructive method should work for S2R-II too.
As a first step I used a lathe to cut away the surrounding aluminum from around the blue bezel ring.
This resulted in a Warrior Mini with a chamfered head.
This made it possible to insert a thin knife blade into the gap between the bezel ring and the flashlight body, and use a hammer to drive the blade into the gap. First using a thinner blade, then a wider blade, hammering from different sides, slowly the bezel ring started to come off. The chamfer may also help the flashlight to slide more easily into my pocket. I also used the lathe to remove the pointy tactical strike bezel things on the bezel ring to make it smooth.
In the picture you see the original SST-40 inside. I changed it to this LH351D on another 3535 sized MCPCB. It made the hotspot wider, reduced throw, decreased lumens, increased CRI, and lowered CCT. The tint is nice on Turbo mode, but on lower modes my LH351D makes the hotspot slightly greenish tinted. I may try slicing the LED dome in the future to improve the tint (and throw as well). When I sliced the LH351D on my S1R-II, it made the hotspot less greenish than unsliced. Also after slicing the hotspot became smaller than with the original XM-L2.
I would destroy the TIR optic rather than the body, the former being replaceable, this is how I and several other people open Zebralights and this can be done without a scratch on the body.
Here’s a beam comparison for some modded Olights in Low mode. The left one is a stock S1R-II. The Warrior Mini with 4000K LH351D is noticeably green to eyes. Slicing the 5000K LH351D to 0.85 mm brings it close to 4000K, while slicing it to 1.0 mm leaves it a bit above 4000K. Slicing also reduces the green tint and reduces the angular tint shift that causes the hotspot to be differently tinted than the spill. On the 3rd light from left you can see how slicing makes the hotspot smaller than on the 1st and 2nd lights. The LH351Ds are the 90 CRI versions.
The S2R-II on the right side has a beaded 17 mm diameter Yajiamei 20 degree XM-L TIR lens filed down 0.5 mm to fit with 1.6 mm thick Noctigon XP16, that also had to be filed down to 14 mm diameter. While slicing the led dome makes the beam narrower, the beaded TIR still makes it even wider than the original TIR.
The S2R-II disassembled. Original TIR and MCPCB on the right. The replacing TIR on the left. Link to the above photos.
Both S1Rs and Warrior Mini on the picture have just their original Olight TIRs. I didn’t measure exactly, but I would guess Olight uses the same TIR in all those lights.
On the other hand it’s strange that calculating the candela/lumen ratio from Olight’s specs gives different numbers for each light. This would hint that there is some difference between their optics. The difference between 4 and 6 cd/lm is not that big though, so I dunno:
You can open the S1R II without destroying the optics. Use a carpenter knife blade with a hammer and slowly work the blade between the head and the bezel, all the way around. The bezel will separate and eventually pop off. The 3000K and 5700K XM-L2 from Kaidomain have really nice tints.
To install 3535 LED’s you can sand down a 16mm Noctigon MCPCB to 14mm diameter. That is just before the + and - pads. Then you will have to sand down the thickness to 1mm. That’s the most difficult part. But I managed to do it and I’m running a XP-L HI 3300K 7A in one of my little Batons. But I swapped to the Yajiamei beaded optic and the beam is wonderful! Small emitting surface LED’s don’t play well with the stock optic.
Be very careful with the MCPCB when doing mods. Always test for a short circuit between the + and ground, as well as - and ground of the MCPCB before soldering the driver wires. If you have a short your driver will be toast and you will sit with an expensive but pretty paperweight.
On Warrior Mini bezel ring is not accessible as on S1/2 models...
One other note, Sofirn SP10S stock MCPCB fits perfect in Olight S1/2 and Warrior Mini. It doesn't require sanding thickness, maybe trimming a bit width but thickness is 1mm and it's copper. You just need to have SP10S
Yes, indeed. Sacrificing an optic is the only way with that and the S2R II. The issue I have with that is you are stuck with a 20 deg optic and floody beam. That makes the choice of LED difficult of you want at least half decent throw.